A 'Sim'ple Story

Three's a Crowd

T/W: Fire, trauma.

"Nancy wants to come round tonight, is that okay?" Joe asked as he glanced up from his phone.

'No, that's not okay! Not okay at all!' Dianne inwardly screamed, 'I never want to see those big, fake tits ever again... or any other part of her body, for that matter!'.

In the past few weeks since they had met, Joe and Nancy had been texting each other at every available opportunity. To say that Dianne was annoyed by how much they seemed to click would be an understatement! But the redhead was still unwilling to admit that her feelings were caused by jealousy. And it wasn't as though there was anything for her to be jealous of: Nancy was married, and although Dianne didn't know who the poor guy was, she hoped that the blonde wouldn't risk jeopardising her marriage for a man who was out of her league.

But of course, Dianne wasn't going to voice her objection aloud, "Sounds great!" the redhead replied sweetly instead.

Joe shot her a stomach-flipping smile before texting his response to Nancy, "Cool, thanks".

Dianne could practically feel her stomach dropping at the thought of spending more time with Nancy. It was bad enough that she had to plaster on a smile when all she wanted to do was slap the older woman around the face, but Dianne also had to watch Nancy flirting with the guy that the Australian couldn't get out of her head. Dianne didn't know how she was supposed to deal with that: she was tempted to make herself scarce so that she didn't have to, but it would probably just cause more suspicion. Plus, if Dianne wasn't around to keep an eye on them, she knew that she would be constantly thinking about them and overthinking everything, which would be even worse than being in their presence. So, the redhead had to mentally prepare herself for an evening that she already knew she wouldn't want to remember!

---

If looks could kill, then Nancy definitely would not still be standing! As she watched the blonde flirting with Joe from across the room, Dianne gritted her teeth whilst violently chopping the vegetables for their stir-fry, narrowly avoiding her fingers with each slice. The redhead was hardly the most coordinated person at the best of times, so her clumsiness combined with spying on the pair in front of her and trying to prepare food made for a dangerous combination! There was a brief respite as the young woman turned to combine all of the ingredients into the heated wok, until she was distracted by a loud cackle from Nancy behind her. Dianne spun around and glared at the sight of Nancy practically grabbing onto Joe as she giggled away at something that even appeared to be a mystery to the younger man. Dianne knew exactly what the blonde was doing, yet she could barely tear her eyes away from the sight of what was up there as one of the worst things she had ever witnessed! Distracted by the chaos in front of her, Dianne was oblivious to the chaos unfolding on the stovetop behind her as both situations spiralled out of control.

Joe smiled in bemusement as Nancy let out a playful giggle at his remark that was neither amusing nor particularly memorable, but he wasn't sure what he was trying to achieve. The young man wasn't really interested in Nancy, but she was one of the first people that Joe had connected with since he and Dianne had moved in, and he wanted to get to know her better. Speaking of Dianne, it didn't take a genius to figure out that the redhead wasn't keen on Nancy, though Joe didn't know why. Was she jealous that Joe had built a relationship with someone else, or that someone else was more interested in him than her? Yes, Nancy was more forthright than the people he would usually hang out with, but she actually seemed to like him; and Joe wasn't going to reject someone just because they didn't conform to his usual 'type'. A petty part of Joe wanted to show Dianne that he wasn't hung up on their near-kiss from a month earlier (even though he secretly was), and possibly even make her a little bit jealous. He hated even thinking that – because he knew it was complicating an already uncomfortable situation – but Joe was only human!